Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 1 – The Stay in Touch monitoring project reports that large-scale shutdowns of mobile internet began in May in the capital but then grew rapidly in the summer and fall, reaching a total of 11,900 times over the course of 2025 and affecting more than 63 of Russia’s federal subjects.
The outrages ramped up and spread particularly rapidly during the summer, with the number of shutdowns rising from 68 in May to nearly 2,000 in August, before declining slightly and leveling off at around 1700 in the fall and with the number of federal subjects affected rising from one to 75 by August before leveling off at about 56 each month for the rest of the year.
The three cities hit for the longest periods were Nizhny Novgorod which suffered 202 days without internet, Rostov, which did not have it for 200 days, and Moscow which suffered outages for 199 days (theins.ru/news/288158 and ru.themoscowtimes.com/2025/12/31/v-rossiiskih-regionah-pochti-12-tisyach-raz-otklyuchali-internet-v-2025-godu-a184027).
Other cities and regions which suffered the longest periods of outages include Saratov, Sverdlovsk, Yaroslav, Moscow and Omsk regions, the Republic of Tatarstan and St. Petersburg, a pattern that has led Stay in Touch analysts to conclude that cities of over a million people are most likely be victimized in this way.
At the same time, these researchers say, there have been almost no internet shutdowns in the North Caucasus and in the regions of the Russian Far East, with Chukotka having experienced only six brief episodes of mobile internet shutdown in 2025 – even though these areas have fewer internet providers and could have their connections shut down more easily.
Internet shutdowns hit the regions where they take place especially hard because people there have fewer options and thus the suspension of internet connectivity leads to economic problems and population flight (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/12/internet-outages-hitting-russias.html).
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